Author Birgit Vanderbeke died at 65

Author Birgit Vanderbeke died at 65. dpa - 3 hrs ago Author Birgit Vanderbeke has died. She became 65 years old. She had already died unexpectedly on December 24, the Piper publishing house in Munich announced on Tuesday. The publisher referred to the family of the writer, who lived in southern France. "With Birgit Vanderbeke, German-language literature loses a powerful, stubborn and unmistakable voice. Our sympathy goes out to her husband and her family," Piper publisher Felicitas von Lovenberg said, according to the statement. Vanderbeke was born in 1956 in Dahme, Brandenburg, but moved with her family to Frankfurt am Main in 1961. There she later studied law, German and Romance languages and literature. She is best known for her short story "Das Muschelessen." Books such as "Alberta Receives a Lover" and her autobiographical trilogy of novels also belong to the canon of contemporary literature, the publisher explained. The author has also received many literary awards, such as the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize and the Kranichstein Literature Prize. In 2007, she was awarded the Brothers Grimm Professorship at Kassel University.